Pro Developer - Optimize Your View

You don't have to have an MBA or be a sales weasel to effectively manage these problems. You just have to expand your view of the software development process to include anything that might effect your release, and do what's necessary to protect the code you've worked so hard to create. Granted, this isn't always as sexy as writing a flashy UI in the cool language of the day, but when it's 4 AM, you haven't slept in 3 days, and poor management decisions all but insure that tomorrow your product will ship in less than perfect shape, nothing's sexy.

It's time for programmers to regain control of the software development process. Learning sneaky and not so sneaky tricks to deal with all the non-coding issues that threaten our programs, our free time and our sanity is what we'll be doing in the months ahead. Step by step, issue by issue, we'll look into ways of seeing disaster before it strikes and taking preemptive steps. The end result will be more time doing what you really love - writing cool code that becomes the next Killer App. And isn't that really what you signed up for when you chose this profession?